Friends, Red Cross help family that lost kids in fire | News

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Zephyrhills, Florida - Two wheelchairs sit in a truck outside the charred mobile home. They will never again transport Hunter and Mackenze Freeman.

The two children with cerebral palsy, ages ten and nine, died Tuesday night when their mobile home on Loury Drive caught fire.

Neighbors, including Troy Zupancic, tried to get them out using knives, chainsaws and anything at hand, but it was no use. "We just wanted to get in," says Zupancic. "But the flames were so hot and smoke so bad. I tried three times to get through the door and just couldn't get it.

The fire broke out about 6:40 p.m. Investigators are still looking into the cause.

The kids' parents Anise Bourque and James Moore were just next door. Family friends say they want people to know that the parents were not neglectful and that the couple doted on their children.

"Oh, yeah, the kids were their world," says Zupancic, who was actually talking with the parents when the fire broke out.

10 News tried to contact the fire victims' biological father on Wednesday. A note on the door of his Valrico home asked for no disturbances.

Two other children got out of the home okay. The family is staying with relatives and the local Red Cross is assisting with food, clothes and counseling services.

People across the Bay Area are touched by this tragedy. 10 News has received calls from people offering cemetery plots and funeral arrangements.

A friend of the family is in the process of setting up a fund for the family at a bank. That information should be available on Thursday.

It's clear from the anger and tears at the River Haven mobile home park that this event is breaking hearts. Right after the fire neighbor Mike Fall put it this way, "I'll have nightmares on this for a long time. If there's a God, why would he do that?"

To Donate:

People can go to any SunTrust Bank and ask for the Benefit Trust for the family of Mackenze and Hunter Freeman.